This Cat and Mouse Game
by Caari
Summary: A personal back-and-forth look into that most entangling relationship that is the Sniper versus Spy rivalry, told over the course of one long career. Poemfic. Rated for safety. Ongoing.
1. Chapter 1: The Real Prize

**A/N**: I owe a large thank you to those who read my last poem and left such stellar reviews! Following the advice you left me, I've decided to start up a small series of these-but for now, I'll be doing a poem-chapter-fic focusing upon the Sniper versus Spy rivalry. I don't know how long it will be yet, but I hope you enjoy it!

**The Real Prize**

A stab,

a startled gasp,

a strangled scream of

fading pain, everlasting as it is

as the final moment of life

in my most beloved,

despised

enemy's ill-begotten

waste of an existence.

Like Arthur with his sword,

I pull my knife free of the flesh

that encapsulates it, though it isn't this

little sword that is the prize.

Non-the real prize lies

within that look

in his eyes

as I

relieve him of

his duties, his worries-

no more mere et pere to pester him,

and certainly no more of that

silly little credo of his.

"Be polite,

"Be efficient,

"Have a plan to kill

"everyone you meet," he says.

Said, rather, as the case

now stands. I have

wrote the end

to this, our

most

cherished

game, our most

heated and passionate

entanglement-a rivalry whose

bitterness befouled our mouths for

far, far too long, I'm afraid.

Though, I must admit,

as I stare down

upon my

open cigarette case,

beautiful in its simplicity,

elegant in its duality of purpose,

and well worth the obscene

amount of money I

paid for it,

it certainly was most

enjoyable, our little game of

cat and mouse, where

those particular roles

were swapped

with no particular

regard as to who played who.

Variety, they say, is

the spice of life,

so, in that

regard,

our lives must

have been pretty damn

spicy. Now, as I light up my

clove-infused cigarette,

imported from

France-

fitting, non?-

I hear only the smallest

_-_what was-? _Click._

"Sniper, is zha-?"

_Bam._

**Well, look at that.**

**Looks like it's still rainin', mate.**


	2. Chapter 2: A Professional

**A Professional With (Questionable) Standards**

Honestly, I don't know what's worse:

that nightmare of a Respawn system,

which must be something out of the Medic's wettest dreams,

what with the twisting

and the turning

and the breaking

and the mending, all happening at once;

or that blasted spook

who haunts me as though

he really were some vengeful specter risen from the grave

and I was the unlucky bastard

that murdered him. Which, I suppose,

_I sort of am._

I say _sort of_

because it's not as if I killed him

out of any sense of

vengeance,

malice,

or even wanton bloodlust like some of these blokes-

they must have ran

straight from the doors of a loony bin

onto the battlefield.

There are two kinds of men

running around those

vast mountains of cadavers and

across the rivers of blood:

those men unstable enough

to pick up a weapon and

build up these mountains, let the rivers flow;

and those destined

to become building material,

to become one with our fucked-up nature.

Up until I met him,

I was solidly set in that first class of blokes,

with my beloved rifle cupped in my palm;

her barrel hot and scarred by years of faithful service,

it was as if she were built

just for me.

She knew my terms for taking this job-

I didn't get a kill,

I didn't get to eat for the night...

and she's never let me go to bed without supper.

(And let me tell you,

her twin, the Huntsman?

He's just as reliable, if not more versatile.)

Welp, it was a couple months

after I'd been contracted by the team that

word began to spread among the grapevine

that the pansies across the way had also

contracted a professional.

"Why worry?" I thought to myself.

"Just another ant to burn under my spyglass."

As the days passed

and the battles wore on,

I soon came to realize that

this so-called "professional"

did not hold to the

same standards of conduct any professional

I'd ever had the displeasure

to run across held.

No,

this wretch

of the most despicable ilk

liked to toy with his victims,

to victimize his toys,

leaving a bloody mess

for all to see

while being unable to be

seen by all.

He wanted us to know terror.

He wanted us to know that,

no matter how we fought,

no matter where we were from,

no matter how well-protected

we thought we were,

_**we were dead wrong.**_

And on one fateful evening,

overcast by the most ominous clouds I ever had seen,

I met the Spy.


End file.
